A growing number of investors, including prominent businessmen such as the Greens Party donor Piers Dawson-Damer, have broken their silence over their disgust with the company.

Rupert Murdoch
’s News Corp invested $30 million in the company and
Westpac
is owed more than $50 million. The revelations come as allegations of biosecurity breaches and credit card misuse by staff have been uncovered by a Fairfax investigation into the company, which used taxpayers’ money to try and build the world’s largest carbon farm south of Alice Springs. “There was real resistance to governance reform from some quarters, including to changing the equity structure when, in mid-2012, a number of shareholders sought to implement a restructure," Mr Dawson-Damer said.

Mr Dawson-Damer’s company, Yuills, was a multimillion-dollar investor in RM Williams Agricultural Holdings. “There were very divergent views held at least among senior management about the value of group assets, the direction of the company and priorities for capital investment," he said.

Company’s governance under fire

“We are, of course, disappointed with the outcome for [the company] and our investment in it."

United States-based Alan Gayer, who is a shareholder and co-founder of the Inglewood poultry business, was caught up in the investment and has criticised the company’s governance.

“We were quite disappointed with the performance of [the company]. We watched it go through various things and it became clear that guidance on this to the shareholders was not totally reliable," Mr Gayer told Fairfax .

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He said special A-class shares held by Mr Cowley, managing director David Pearse and a select few, dissuaded new investors, which the ­company needed to stay alive.

“It became clear that once potential new investors understood the role of those class A shares, no rational investor would put money in under those terms," Mr Gayer said. “Looking at it from a distance, it appeared that Pearse and Cowley were kind of working on this together and had some form of understanding on this," Mr Gayer said.

Mr Pearse has denied any impro­priety. Mr Cowley, who was chairman of the company, declined to comment, said he was “mainly an investor".